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“So, What Else Do You Do?”
October 23, 2014
In a recent piece on “the work fetish,” German journalist Patrick Spaet wrote that “Probably no other sentence comes up at a party as often as: ‘So, what do you do?’” Spaet noted that this question contains within it the seeds of another, unspoken inquiry: “Are you ...

Daily Bafflements
October 23, 2014
• Chapman University has conducted a nationwide poll about what Americans fear most. The fears they ranked include hurricanes, identity theft on the Internet, clowns, child abduction, and public speaking, among many others. Fun fact: Americans are more afraid of Obamacare ...

How to Ease the Burden of the 1 Percent
October 22, 2014
Departures, a magazine that helps the 1 percent spend their money creatively, is a great read. It comes free with your American Express platinum card. If you don’t have an American Express platinum card, there’s a good chance you’ll find this magazine in a bathroom of your ...

Daily Bafflements
October 22, 2014
• Yesterday brought two intriguing developments in the future availability of indigent legal defense. From Capital came the news that “New York State has settled a lawsuit with the New York Civil Liberties Union, and agreed to ensure new standards for legal ...

The Marquis de Sade’s Executive MBA
October 21, 2014
The Deadline: A Novel of Project Management, Tom DeMarco’s 1997 novel, is not a good book. But it is, in its way, a miraculous object: it is, apparently, the first amalgamation of two of our modern world’s most powerful textual forms—the novel and the airport bookstore ...

Daily Bafflements
October 21, 2014
• Rich idiots are bathing in wine and sand, and paying extra for fancy ice. (Thanks to Ben Walsh for that sand one.) • From this New Yorker piece about Janet Yellen’s recent speech we learn that “In 1989, the bottom half of the distribution owned just three per ...

Happy Birthday, Jean-Arthur Rimbaud
October 20, 2014
The words and work of Jean-Arthur Rimbaud, French poet and libertine, have been dear to The Baffler since the very start. The introduction to our inaugural issue, way back in the hazy days of 1988, name-checked Monsieur Rimbaud as an example of the bold voices that were missing ...

Daily Bafflements
October 20, 2014
• A Fox News reporter, interviewing State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf on Friday about the global Ebola crisis, very earnestly asked why the government has not yet considered launching an “ice bucket challenge” to combat the disease. • Today in ...

Indignation Nation
October 17, 2014
One of the great pleasures in life is indignation. It’s right up there with anger, love, and fear. Technically speaking, indignation is one of the “reflective” or “cognitive” emotions. When something big, metallic, and fast hurls toward you down the road, you feel fear ...

Daily Bafflements
October 17, 2014
• The nonpartisan group Crowdpac has compiled the most common first names of conservative and liberal political donors, with interesting results. As Katherine Miller of BuzzFeed puts it, “The liberal names generally sound like a group of women in their late 20s; the ...

The Jobs vs. the Environment Myth Lives On
October 16, 2014
Earlier this month, MSNBC host Chris Hayes participated in a bit of sparring with Cecil Roberts of the United Mine Workers of America. Placing himself firmly in the “anything but country music” camp of post-Carter American liberalism, Hayes brashly proclaimed, “in fifty ...

Daily Bafflements
October 16, 2014
• New York’s attorney general is releasing a report today declaring that nearly three-quarters of all Airbnb listings in the city are illegal. “Commercial operators, not hard-luck residents, supply more than a third of the units and generate more than a third of ...